


Curious

by Jane St Clair (3jane)



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-07
Updated: 2011-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:00:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur does some research and discusses the nature of<br/>addiction with Curt.  Has smutty bits.  Post-movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curious

**Author's Note:**

> "The Tyger Voyage" is a long poem by Richard Adams (he of  
> "Watership Down"). I've quoted the first eight lines, and yes,  
> those other things really are in the plot. Great stuff.

When Arthur Stuart came to New York, he came with a portable  
typewriter, not electric, and a few clothes in a mostly  
cardboard suitcase.  Under the layer of jeans and knit cotton,  
there had been enough lame and makeup to get him into full drag,  
certainly enough that he'd spent the half-hour in customs at  
Kennedy airport praying to a God that he didn't believe in that  
his bags wouldn't be searched.  He would have been calmer trying  
to cross the Turkish border with twenty kilos of hashish  
strapped to his body.  He saw "Midnight Express" five years  
later, in a theatre that had only recently been converted from  
playing Russian industrial pornography, and was grateful that he  
hadn't yet seen it then.  At twenty-two, he had sincerely  
believed that his life would end if the contents of his suitcase  
were upended on that not at all sterile counter in front of far  
too many people.

At that time, only his skin had been holding him together.  In  
the six weeks it took him to find a flat and a job, his addict's  
craving for Curt Wild settled into habitual obsession.  In the  
three years during which he clawed his way from newsroom slave  
to staff hack, he operated on the edge of exhaustion all the  
time, so that his need for Curt was gradually subsumed by his  
need for sleep and real food.  After seven years, it wasn't even  
something he thought about; it was just a need which had almost  
ceased to have a name, and which only bothered him on the  
occasional nights when he couldn't sleep and found himself  
seated on his living room floor at four in the morning, drinking  
English tea and rocking himself slowly on the edge of tears.

At some point during that time, he'd come to a steady  
understanding of his sexuality that didn't require the  
shimmering, drag-queen props of his glam childhood.  He didn't  
throw the make-up or the jewellery out, but he did put them  
away, and ceased to think about them except as souvenirs of a  
life he didn't particularly want anymore.

None of that helped to explain to him why he was sitting  
shirtless on his floor with the lights off, drawing abstract  
designs on his arms with a tube of ancient and almost liquid  
lipstick.  He was overtired, still strung out from a week of  
intense and ultimately pointless research, and from the  
maddening concert at which he'd spent most of the evening.  He  
couldn't remember the last time he'd slept for more than four or  
five hours.  Maybe that exhaustion would be enough to justify  
himself when he had to explain why he'd decided to allege that  
lacquered political pop star Tommy Stone was his own idol's  
former lover.  No one would make those precise connections,  
probably, but untold numbers of people would be furious.  He had  
sudden visions of being deported.  Maybe he could deny that he  
had been there.  He'd given a nameless teenaged girl his press  
pass in the bar; he could easily claim that he'd never received  
it, and had left immediately after the tasteless stage spectacle  
he'd been subjected to.

Blood, he decided.  If he'd been braver, he would have been  
drawing on himself in blood.  His own, preferably, drawn with  
his teeth or with the brooch pin that he'd acquired earlier that  
evening.  The thing was long enough to be an instrument of  
destruction in a Greek tragedy, though he didn't think anything  
in his life had ever demanded that level of melodrama.  He  
wasn't ready to die or go blind; he was only fragile, and  
needing the repetition and touch that the body art gave him.

His tea had cooled enough that he could swallow it all without  
stopping for breath.  Sugar that had collected at the bottom of  
the cup covered his lips like another mouth.  Licking it off, he  
went to shower, and fell asleep naked on his bedspread, curled  
on his side with a pillow pulled to his abdomen.  When he woke,  
he was momentarily disoriented to find that Curt wasn't there.    
He'd been so sure he could smell him.

*****

He knew he looked terrible.  Lou's secretary had stopped on her  
walk through the newsroom, knelt, and checked his temperature  
with the back of her hand laid against his forehead.  She wasn't  
old enough, really, for an action that maternal, but he accepted  
it, and she didn't turn it into an advance.  On her next circuit  
through, she brought him tea and watched him while he drank it.    
He was shivering with exhaustion.

He was out of his mind.  He had no right to be obsessed by a man  
with whom he'd spent only one night, seven years previously, and  
who had later gracefully offered him friendship in return for  
Arthur's too-invasive questions.  Without the Slade assignment,  
he lacked even the small excuse of professional interest.  There  
was no justification for the search he ran that afternoon,  sorting  
through the layers of names until he found Curt's on a half-dozen  
documents.  There was a little for his then fleeing to the men's loo  
and throwing up.  There was infinitely more for the fact that he  
then got up, washed out his mouth, and went back to work.  He worked  
late, until nearly eight-thirty, finishing a half-dozen short pieces  
based on the international wires, and only gathered himself up to  
leave when the night staff, a collection of trembling, coffee-fuelled  
wreaks, began to watch him with thinly-veiled paranoia.

At eight-forty-five he was wrapped as deeply in his coat as he  
could bury himself, hailing a cab out of the dense New York  
traffic.  At nine-twenty, he was shaking in the doorway of the  
club that had borne Curt Wild's name in its civic records.

He'd been there before.  He'd interviewed Mandy Slade in a booth  
in the corner opposite where he was currently standing.  It  
should have occurred to him that her career wasn't such that she  
would receive marquee billing from anyone but a friend.  Slade  
wasn't visible, and her name was down outside.  Around the brick  
pillars, he made out two dozen or so patrons, mostly drinking  
and all talking in voices too low for him to catch.  The absence  
of music was startling.  He couldn't remember when he'd last  
been in a bar or club that didn't have at least a jukebox or the  
radio going.  In the stillness, Arthur's breathing was  
unreasonably invasive.

When the waiter slipped by him, he caught the man, ordered a  
beer, then thought better of it and added vodka to the request.    
The drinks caught up with him at Mandy's table.  He drank the  
vodka too fast, then traced the cigarette burns on the wood  
veneer while the alcohol-induced pain swept through his head and  
cleared it.  The beer after that was a sweet change.  It settled  
him, reminded him of the joys of a comfortable blankness that  
didn't demand decisions or present crises.

The sound of tuning wasn't a familiar one anymore.  Since he'd  
abandoned the Flaming Creatures for the greyness of New York, he  
hadn't lived with musicians, and he'd lost his quiet acceptance  
of those discordances.  Arthur twisted around, saw the stage  
stripped of everything but a half-dozen chairs and few basic  
amplifiers.  A man he didn't know was settled at stage right,  
quietly tuning an unplugged electric bass.  He did it carefully,  
twisting the keys and cocking his head to catch the effect, then  
adjusting again.  

Curt Wild was sitting on the edge of the stage.

His hair was still tied back, badly, with strands falling into  
his face and catching in the sides of his mouth.  He was  
t-shirted and stocking-footed, wrapped casually in his jeans.    
One knee was up, and he was tuning an acoustic guitar against  
it.  After a second, though, he seemed to be satisfied with the  
sound, and began picking out something unpredictably melodic  
which Arthur couldn't quite name.  The bass man joined him  
gradually, until they had a steady rhythm going.  None of the  
drinkers seemed to notice.  When the two players closed, a few  
others set down their beers and applauded lightly, but even they  
gave up after a few moments.  

The only effect that Arthur could see was on Curt.  He closed up  
shockingly at the small reaction, handed off the guitar and  
retreated.  Someone else resumed playing.  No one noticed.  

Curt was still like that, then -- hating attention and always  
attracting it.  In Arthur's ancient scrapbook, there was a  
photograph of Curt shaking off a fan's grasping arm and burying  
his face in Brian Slade's shoulder.  What he was doing now was  
the social equivalent, burying himself in a poorly-lit corner  
with a glass.  The tie in his hair had come loose, and the blond  
mess concealed his face almost entirely.

Ignoring the comfortable jam session taking place on the care  
stage, Arthur gathered himself up and crossed the room.  He  
settled himself opposite Curt and waited for the man to notice  
him.  

"Buy you a drink?"

"I don't drink, much," Curt said softly.  He hadn't raised his  
head.  The voice was the same growl, running over the folded  
hands and pressing through the veil of hair.

"You were drinking last night," Arthur said.

"Yeah, but I really, really needed it then."

Arthur nodded and sniffed a little.  The only thing in Curt's  
glass was water.  There was a whiff of cigarette smoke that he  
eventually traced to an ashtray pushed back out of his line of  
sight.  The butt in it flared slightly when Arthur breathed in  
its direction.

"But you smoke," he said.

"Gives me something to do with my hands."  In fact, Curt's hands  
were frenetic, tapping at the table and the sides of his glass  
so forcefully that Arthur thought the man might go into    
convulsions if he were forced to still his extremities.  When he  
caught Arthur's eyes on him, though, Curt immediately hid his  
hands below the table, eventually re-emerging with a lighter and  
a fresh cigarette.  Once lit, the cigarette flashed from hand to  
hand, calligraphing the silence between them.

He needed to say something.  The silence wasn't awkward, really,  
but it shook him, his reporter's need for words forcing itself  
to the surface.  He was halfway out of his seat to flee the  
scene when he found a question and let it fall out of his mouth.

"Look, do you know who I am?"

"What?"

"When you saw me in the bar, on Friday, did you recognise me?  I  
mean, did you realise that you'd met me before?  Or did you only  
talk to me because I approached you?"

Curt rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes.  "What do  
you want me to tell you?"

"The truth."  His reporter's answer.

"I doubt it.  I'd like to tell you that I remembered you.  I  
remember you now.  Arthur Stuart, briefly of the Flaming  
Creatures, more recently shit-disturber in the delicately-  
balanced world of superstar Tommy Stone.  I met you at the Death  
of Glitter concert."  Curt flashed him a smile so brief Arthur  
wasn't sure it was anything more than a facial tic.  "I remember  
wanting you like I hadn't wanted anyone since Brian.  Maybe even  
since before Brian.  But when you walked up to me, no, I didn't  
know you.

"You look different.  Really different.  When we -- in London,  
you were a kid.  I thought you were going to break the first  
time I kissed you.  Christ, I was so stoned, it's a wonder I  
didn't really hurt you.  Now you look . . . more solid, I guess.    
Stronger than me.  Smarter, probably."

"No."

"Sure.  Doesn't really matter, other than that I like it on you.    
I liked the other look, too, as far as it goes.  You know, I did  
remember you, the way you looked that morning, for a long time.    
You were so happy, and such a mess -- we'd got lipstick all over  
your face, and my glitter was on you.  You have no idea how much  
I wanted to take you home."

"But you didn't."

"I didn't have much of a home.  I think I was sleeping on Jack  
Fairy's couch at the time.  And while I'm sure he would have  
found you charming . . ."  He dragged the word out, making it  
five absurdly British syllables.  

Arthur didn't know what he'd expected.  It wasn't reasonably to  
ask the man to simply take him back.  Arthur was, to all intents  
and purposes, the grey man he'd tried very hard to avoid  
becoming, and Curt was a glittering creature who was too  
beautiful to be a man of his age.

And then Curt smiled at him fully and his heart stopped.  A  
thin, blunt-fingered hand landed on Arthur's to hold him in  
place until he sank back against the vinyl seat, picked up his  
empty glass, and tilted it futilely against his lips.  For half  
a second, the eyes creased into what might have been laughter,  
then something defensively hard stiffened the face and Curt was  
looking at him with almost clinical detachment.

Arthur tried very hard not to be hurt.  The old manager's words  
nagged at him: 'The shock treatment was supposed to fry the  
fairy out of him, but all it really did was make him bonkers.'    
It was a harsher judgement that Curt deserved.  The man's  
fragility came out of that abuse, but the towering arrogance  
that coated it was entirely based in Curt's understanding that  
the world knew about him.  He'd been conceived by wolves, raised  
by thieves, fucked by trailer trash, and tortured by the medical  
system, and then his personal life had been plastered across  
every tabloid in London.  

For an instant Arthur changed his sight angle and he was blinded  
by what was under Curt's armour.  Lust slammed up him like it  
hadn't in any part of his rational life.  In the very far  
distance, there were still musicians on the stage and a dozen or  
so drinkers in the line-of-sight audience, but he'd lost any  
interest in them.  He wasn't about to react to anything that  
wasn't within breathing distance.  What he did instead was lean  
over the table, clamp his hand around the back of Curt's skull,  
and kiss the man hard.

In the first second after Arthur's lips closed over the other  
man's, Curt went so still that Arthur had to open his eyes to be  
sure he was still there.  The huge, grey eyes that were too  
close to his were filled with something almost like shell-shock.    
And then Curt's mouth opened and Arthur found the other man  
sucking at his tongue.  Arthur had closed his eyes again; he  
kept them shut after Curt pulled back and gently used both hands  
to loosed Arthur's fingers from their death-grip in his hair.  
He could feel the heat of people's eyes on him.

"What do you want, Arthur Stuart?"  Dry humour under the  
flatness.

"You."

"Okay, then."  Curt got up, walked around the edge of the bar  
and retrieved his coat.  If Arthur had felt the patrons' eyes  
hot on him, then Curt had to be burning.  He'd only cracked open  
his eyes, enough to see Curt fall into his defensive slink for  
maybe five paces, then straighten suddenly and glare at everyone  
watching him.  His lips pulled back a little, and Arthur  
realized the man was snarling.  If he'd had hackles, they would  
have been up.  Everything in him saying, *Back off.*

He followed Curt when the man walked by him and wound his way to  
the back entrance.  He was halfway into the alley when Curt  
turned on him and kissed him hard.  Oh god there was Curt Wild  
all over him and that hot wetness was going to climb right  
inside him, climb down his throat and settle inside him, until  
Curt was wearing Arthur Stuart as a second skin.  So hard.    
Curt's hands were on the back of Arthur's head, close against  
his scalp, and if Arthur had had more than a few inches of hair,  
those hands would have been so tangled in him that they'd never  
have gotten loose.

Too good.  He twisted them so that Curt was against the wall.    
Canted his hips and pushed hard against the man's thigh.  God,  
he was so hard he was going to come in a minute.  He hadn't done  
this in far too long.  He was gnawing on Curt's breastbone, his  
collar bone.  Slid his hands into Curt's waistband and pulled  
the t-shirt out, pushed it up, and in half a second he was on  
his knees, kissing the softly haired belly that he'd exposed.    
Curt whimpered, then shook as Arthur ran his teeth down the hair  
trail as far as he could reach, only stopping when his teeth  
caught against the denim.

Curt said, "Don't."

Arthur paused, looked up with Curt's hard-on just below his  
chin.  "You're joking."

"I'm not going to fuck you behind a bar.  I know these people --  
they use the back way *way* too often.  And it's raining.    
Jesus, aren't you cold?"

He was soaking.  The knitted collar and cuffs of his jacket were  
so wet he could have wrung them out; his knees were in half an  
inch of water.  The moment he stood up, he was going to be able  
to tell that he was wet from knee to ankle.  Like wearing a  
sign: *I blew Curt Wild in an alley.* God, he hadn't been this  
cheap in years.

"Let me take you home," he said.

Curt snaked a hand down, cupped Arthur's chin, letting the back  
of his hand rest against his own erection.  "Sounds good.  Get  
you out of those wet clothes."

He made it sound so innocent.  Arthur had a flash suddenly of  
Curt as he must have been in Michigan: casual, rude, and  
abruptly middle-American.  Somebody's cousin.  Somebody's dad,  
even.  Someone who would pick you up from hockey practice in a  
ten year old blue pick-up, sing with you on the way home and  
then hand you over to your mom to be taken care of.  Somebody  
who'd always be poor, drink a little too much, dream a lot.  

Or the closet queerboy, working an assembly-line job and giving  
blow-jobs behind rink because it was the only way he could get  
anyone to touch him.  Grow up and live with just his mom, loved  
carefully by her but always slightly alien.  Known as the town  
nut-job ever since he got out of psychiatric care.

Arthur pushed himself straight up by laying his hands on Curt's  
knees and levering against them.  He wasn't even fully upright  
yet when he wrapped both arms around Curt and buried his face in  
the man's shoulder.  He hugged the body against his desperately,  
whimpered a little into Curt's neck.

"Hey," Curt said.  "What?"

"Nothing."  Abruptly embarrassed.  "Get a cab?"

"Yeah."

***

The cab had a small PLO sticker visible, and the driver was  
young, dark, and jittery.  He only seemed relieved that neither  
Curt nor Arthur looked to be dangerous, and carefully didn't  
notice them necking in the back seat.  Ten minutes into the  
trip, Arthur hadn't been entirely sure that Curt wasn't simply  
going tobend him double and fuck him against the vinyl.  As it  
was, he had Curt's hand in his pants, rubbing him frantically,  
then pulling back just before Arthur would have had to come or  
shatter.  He was still whimpering when Curt zipped him up, sat  
back, and held his sticky palm up, then licked it, with a wide,  
deliberate dog-grin.

Four floors up, three flights of stairs, and they kissed on  
every landing.  On the second one, Curt had pushed him back  
against the next flight, bent, and licked Arthur's neck with the  
same animal-strokes he'd used earlier on his own hand.

*Bastard.*  

"Tease."

"Nuh-uh.  When I get you upstairs, you're going to get  
*everything*.  Promise."

And in his apartment, Curt had made him very naked.  Stripped  
him entirely, taking off each sock, his coat and shoes and  
jeans, his underwear.  Rubbed fingers against the backs of his  
knees and up under his balls.

"*Tease.*"

His bed was too small for two full-grown men, but Curt appeared  
not to have noticed.  Arthur found himself laid out on his back  
with Curt straddling his waist, still wiggling out of his own  
clothes.  It wasn't right for a man to be that sexy, writhing  
like a dancer with his jeans around his knees.  Wasn't proper.    
Someone should come and lock the man up where only Arthur could  
get at him.

Curt stopped, suddenly.  He bent forward and grabbed Arthur's  
wrists, pinned them.  "*Don't*," he said, fiercely.  "Don't even  
think about it."

It must have been showing on Arthur's face for Curt to react so  
extremely.  He was faced suddenly with all the fear that was  
just under Curt's surface.  He'd broken the armour, and what was  
underneath was fierce and feral and completely self-protective.

The grip wasn't hard.  He broke it by rolling, ended with Curt  
under him and kissed the man's face, kisses that were half  
eyelash, rubbing over the skin just faintly, like insects.  "I'm  
sorry.  I won't.  I didn't mean it, it was just a thought,  
random.  I wouldn't do that."

Under him, Curt shifted and kicked his jeans off.  Bare legs  
wrapped around Arthur's and pulled him closer.  Arthur had to  
reach between them to free Curt's erection from the briefs, but  
he got them off without separating his mouth from Curt's skin.

He could have teased more, but he was so hard he hurt, and Curt  
was still shaking with the fear and rage that oddly hadn't  
softened him at all.  He curled himself around and buried Curt's  
cock as deeply as he could in his mouth.  Took a breath, let it  
out, opened his throat and went all the way down.  He hadn't  
been able to do that yet, the first/last time he'd slept with  
this man; it was a skill that had been part of his New York  
education.  Curt shook under his lips, rocked all over, reached  
for him, and Arthur had to push himself back against the wall to  
stay out of reach.  After a moment's stillness, Curt accepted  
it, and when he reached out again, it was only to stroke  
Arthur's shaking belly.

The lube was where he'd left it, in the half-table beside his  
bed, but he was surprised when Curt handed it to him.  If the  
man was coherent enough to search for anything while Arthur was  
blowing him . . .  He lubed two fingers and pressed them against  
Curt's asshole together.  The whimper this time sounded more  
like pain, but after a moment the muscles gave and both tips  
were inside.  He worked one in almost completely, just using the  
other to keep the hole wide open.  When he was buried, the second  
one worked in, pushing up against the resistance while Curt  
bucked frantically against his mouth.

One hard thrust, and both his fingers were in, and his knuckles  
were pushed up hard against the perineum, and Curt screamed.    
Came hard, running down Arthur's throat so deeply Arthur didn't  
have to consciously swallow.  Didn't have a choice.  For a  
minute or two, he could barely feel his fingers, let alone move  
them.  Then Curt inhaled and let it out deliberately, relaxing.  

While the strange, grey eyes were closed, Arthur worked a third  
finger in and rocked them together back and forth.  He found  
Curt's prostate, but the man was still limp enough from the  
orgasm that he only jerked, then whimpered.  So Arthur stayed  
there, massaging gently inside, and outside with the other hand,  
until he felt the muscles against his head and neck tense a  
little, and the cock that was still resting against his lips  
stir and harden.  Curt wiggled against him, then, a movement  
that meant clearly that he was supposed to get up and look his  
partner in the eye instead of remaining down there, though the  
things he was doing down there most surely qualified as incredible.

He turned himself around in the too-small space and faced Curt  
without completely withdrawing his fingers.  The tips were still  
down there, stretching Curt's asshole gently while he waited.  

Finally, Curt said just, "Yeah," and lifted his hips.  Arthur  
let his fingers slide out, and with the extra reach it gave him,  
he bent to kiss the mouth under his.

Then bent, latexed himself, lubed, and half-knelt/half-lay  
between Curt's thighs.  Curt grinned at him and shifted again,  
so that his legs were up, and pushed one of Arthur's legs  
towards the edge.  Arthur grinned at him.  Kissed.  Dropped his  
leg and half-stood.  He bent against his forearms and pushed,  
hard.

In the first/only night they'd had together, he'd heard Curt  
make all the deep sounds that he'd since come to associate with  
sex, but never this keening wail.  Only the determination on  
Curt's face kept Arthur from pulling out completely and just  
rocking the man.  When Curt next paused to draw breath, Arthur  
kissed him, kept kissing while he thrust twice, out-in-out, in  
and then in as deeply as he could.  Under him, Curt shook.  He  
thrust again, got a whimper out of the fey body under his.

The next thing he was aware of was a leg close against his hip.    
It took him a moment to realize that Curt didn't have the  
strength and flexibility to simply wrap his legs around his  
partner's waist.  But he could help with that.  He changed his  
body-angle until he was lying across Curt on a slight diagonal,  
then let some of his weight down onto Curt's chest and braced  
the rest against his right elbow.  With his left arm, he reached  
behind himself and caught Curt's knee, lifted the leg until it  
rested at the small of his back.  On his other side, he felt  
Curt push his other leg down against the mattress, then raise it  
up to join with the opposite ankle on the rebound.

And suddenly, he had Curt's legs wrapped so tightly around his  
waist that he almost lost his breath, and he was deeper inside  
Curt's body than he'd ever imagined.  So good.  Out, in-in-  
deeper in.  Out-in.  He wasn't building a rhythm, only moving in  
response to Curt's gasps and small begging noises.  His free  
hand slipped under Curt's head and lifted the odd, pale face to  
meet his.  Such ordinariness covering the man's fire.  They  
kissed steadily, rubbing nearly to the back's of each other's  
throats, until Arthur finally whimpered into Curt's mouth,  
found a rhythm, and started driving them home.  Ten thrusts,  
fourteen, and Curt shrieked into him, pushing breath into  
Arthur's lungs, and clamped down.  And then, finally, Arthur  
could come, and lie trembling with Curt's legs still locked  
around his waist.

He might have slept for a while, he wasn't sure afterwards, but  
the sensation of Curt's legs sliding off him made him surface.    
The blond man under him was grimacing a little as he flexed his  
knees.

"Hurts?"

"My legs kind of went to sleep.  Sorry."

"S'alright."  He pulled out, slightly amazed that he hadn't lost  
the condom while he was out.  Curt's asshole stayed a little  
open when he left it, and it looked sore enough that once he was  
settled beside the long body, he reached over one long leg to  
rub gently at the flesh he'd worked so hard.  Against him, Curt  
almost purred.  He was spattered with his own orgasm, but he  
didn't appear to have noticed, and he didn't have enough body  
hair to make the matter urgent.  Arthur was more than prepared  
to stay stroking him all night.

"Well," said Curt softly.

"That was nice," Arthur told him.  "Can you stay?"

"Yeah."  Curt settled against him so securely that he might have  
been bracing himself for nuclear war.

***

Arthur woke in the night to Curt shifting.  He'd been right in  
his initial impression that the bed wasn't large enough for both  
of them.  Curt had until that point been very, very still, but  
Arthur suspected that it was unnatural, and probably forced.

"Wha's wrong?"

"Sorry."  Curt stilled, but Arthur could feel restless tension  
in him.

"No, it's all right.  I just wanted to know if something was the  
matter."

"I'm all right.  I just don't sleep very well.  I've irritated  
any number of lovers by pacing the floor in the middle of the  
night."

"You've stayed with me."  Pause.  "Should I be flattered?"

"I don't know.  Maybe.  I don't think I managed to stay in bed  
with Brian more than a handful of times."  Small grin, barely  
visible in the dark.  "It used to make him so mad."

"I believe it."  Gently, he rolled Curt until the man was on his  
back, then curled himself around the narrow curves that the body  
against his afforded.  "So.  Will I have to tell you a bedtime  
story?"

"It couldn't hurt."  What a strange sound.  He would have  
thought it was hopeful.  "No wolves."

"No wolves.  Tigers?"

"Mmm."

Arthur thought back, but the only thing he could remember was a  
poem he'd read to someone's unreasonably clean-cut child over and  
over again in his days with the Flaming Creatures.  He'd read it  
half a hundred times, probably, he should know it by heart.

"My father's got some curious friends --  
     At least, I s'pose it all depends  
On what you mean by curious --  
     But some are not at all like us.

"He takes a friendly interest  
     In neighbouring bird and local beast.  
The Dubbs live just across the way.  
     (The Dubbs are tygers, I may say.)"

Arthur's accent made the slightly Victorian poem sound less  
ridiculous than it might otherwise have, and Curt seemed  
prepared to listen to him for hours as he told how the Dubbs  
went to sea and were shipwrecked, how they climbed a volcano and  
met gypsies.  He was down to an account of the civil banquet  
with which the Dubbs were greeted on their return when he  
suddenly broke rhythm and said, "It isn't really him, you know,  
it's his manager, the red-headed woman."

Meaning Brian Slade.  That Brian was less cruel than he was  
easily led.  And that Curt shouldn't be so hurt.  That Arthur  
shouldn't be so angry.

Curt snorted.  "Yeah, Shannon.  She's such a goddamn joke.  You  
know she was in love with him, back in days of yore?"

"Mm-hmm.  Mandy Slade told me.  But how did you know?"

"Talk.  Mandy.  My own eyes.  It bothered Shannon, the idea that  
Brian might be queer, like it damaged him or something.  Made  
him less than perfect."

Arthur raised an eyebrow.  "Did it?"  Grateful by now that he  
wouldn't have to recall the last lines of the poem out of his  
tired brain.

Another snort.  "Brian was never perfect, not even on his good  
days.  The best he ever was was a lump, waiting for somebody  
else's ideas to make him into something.  Makes Shannon happy --  
she just had to pick him up, dust him off, and give him a  
terminal case of bad taste."

"This from a man wearing only come, a black sheet, and a hunk of  
Victorian jewellery."

"Huh?"

Arthur reached over Curt's shoulder and picked up the Wilde  
broach from where it was caught on the pillow case.  "It shows  
up so often.  Do you think it's a blessing or a curse?"

"Blessing," said Curt, instantly.  "Wilde fell in love while he  
had it.  Jack Fairy became the toast of gutter London wearing  
it."

"It was Fairy's?"

"Mandy said so.  She remembers a lot, you know."

"I noticed."

"While Brian had it, he was a star, and I loved him.  When I had  
it, I found you."  Leaning up suddenly to dog-kiss Arthur's ear.

"Well then, perhaps I should give it back to you, and we could  
make you famous again."

The comment was an impulse only, but then Arthur thought about  
it.  Some part of him was still jealous of Brian Slade, who'd  
possessed Curt thoroughly enough to be able to give him up.  More  
of him was raging at Tommy Stone, who had buried Curt so  
thoroughly that he was pale from lack of daylight.  Curt was  
thirty-seven, now.  There were lines around his eyes, but they  
could disappear with a little make-up -- or a little plastic  
surgery -- and the right lighting.  He still had the body of a  
slick post-adolescent, rangy and pale, with only a little muscle  
and a thin line of hair running from his breastbone to his groin.    
The music had changed, but Curt's voice, with a little polish,  
could knock Tommy Stone's off the charts.  He was enough of a  
journalist to know that the public was rapidly tiring of techno-  
pop politics, even with president Reynolds' slick, half-youthful  
veneer.  When Curt Wild was packing Shea Stadium, they'd see who  
was the fucking failure.

Grey eyes watching him were steady.  "You want to change me too,  
Arthur?" Curt asked.

"Of course not.  But you have to admit it's a nice fantasy, what  
they say about success being the best revenge."

Curt rolled himself half-upright and pulled his knees up to his  
chest.  "Why would I want revenge?"

"What he said to you . . . before you went to Berlin . . ."

"I don't want revenge, Arthur.  I've got my life; I don't need  
his."

"But . . ."

"Listen to me: I like my life.  Are you going to try to change  
me?"

He let the vision dissolve.  "No."

Curt sighed and settled back against the pillows, rolling until  
he was semi-fetal and still wrapped in the sheet.  "I don't want  
to be famous any more.  You have to give me this, Arthur.  I  
need this much control.  I did the methadone waltz long enough  
to know that you can't kick a habit by just taking smaller doses  
or substituting something else.  You have to give it up, cold  
and forever."

"That can't be good for you."

"Hurts like fuck.  But at least you're clean.  I'm clean."  Curt  
shifted the black cloth away from his body, and for a second he  
was the perfect houri from Arthur's adolescent fantasies.  "And  
I don't belong to anybody.  Not even Brian."

*Not even you, Arthur.*

It hurt, more so than he could have predicted.  That he had  
found something so wonderful and could not own it.  That he  
couldn't protect Curt from the damage the world seemed to fling  
at him.

Gently.  "I'm not joking: I was on methadone for a long fucking  
time.  It was funny, you know -- it took care of the need, but  
it didn't feel good the way heroin did.  It didn't feel  
anything.  I had to give it up just to get back tp ordinary.    
After that, everything was real quiet.  Arthur, you feel good  
like nothing's felt in a really long time."

Even in the dark, Curt had an addict's eyes.  They were clinging  
enough that Arthur understood Curt would still be there when he  
woke in the morning.  If Arthur looked appropriately hopeful,  
Curt might even come with him to the small restaurant around the  
corner that made wonderful, artery-clogging breakfasts.  And  
Curt would be present, as a friend or as a lover, for a long  
time.  The only flaw Arthur could find in this beauty was that  
he wasn't going to be able to own it, and the only hideousness  
he could find in that constant presence was that it wasn't going  
to make his own addiction to it any less.


End file.
